hand-word coordination

Now that we have Spider nailed down, new hand-word combinations have arisen.

This morning, out of nowhere, he started clapping. For real. Both hands making contact, with the sound of palms slapping against one another. I’m not sure how it started. Did I say “Clap” or did I start singing the “Clap clap clap” song? Anyway, next thing I know, he’s clapping and saying clap and cracking up like it’s just the funniest joke ever.

Also this morning, we’re playing with that quilted alphabet pocket wall hanging thing again. He takes out the violin (for V) and hands it to me. I know from watching him play with the nanny last week that she takes it and holds it near her shoulder and mimes playing, and sings a violin-ny sounding melody. So I took my cue and did the same, much to the boy’s great pleasure.

Tonight, when Scott was reading “Barnyard Dance,” he opened to the first page, a picture of a cow with a fiddle (it’s a hoedown song, with farm animals dancing together), and Jonah looked at the picture, said “Viol-ih” and made the playing motion with his hands.

O.M.G.

At another one of the indoor play spaces in our area today, Jonah was playing with the magnetic letters and animals. He looked at the “b” and said “B!”

He picked up a stuffed bunny and said “Bunny” and then “Hop” while he hopped it around.

I’m afraid I’m going to lose readers by blogging about his language advances. I’m absolutely beside myself with it. It’s all I want to talk about. For one thing, it’s so amazing to witness.

I’m sure that at whatever age, every parent goes gaga watching this exponential growth in consciousness. Right?

Am I also basking in the reflected glow of my child’s display of talent? Probably. Am I deluding myself into thinking that talking early is some sign of the intelligence he will display later in life? I don’t expect him to go to Harvard at 12 just because he’s talking now. We’ll see what happens. Language could be like any other milestone as far as I know, in that they’ll all be walking and talking at some point; when they start is irrelevant?

Still, I can’t help apologizing for it when I do admit how advanced Jonah’s language is (oh you know how long I waited with all those PHYSICAL milestones), and/or trying not to brag. But then I do brag. Which can be a little embarrassing.

At the wedding over the weekend, there were two kids also 13 months old. Twins. The boy was walking, the girl wasn’t. The grandmother told me the boy had been walking since 9 months, just like his father. I thought I could hear the pride in her voice. I wasn’t particularly impressed though. He can walk. That’s nice.

Sometimes when I’m talking about Jonah’s talking, I feel like I can sense the other person tuning out.

It strikes me that I probably sound like that grandmother, and that no one in the world is as impressed with our kids and grandkids as we are.

But maybe my kid is a genius? Who knows. It’s fun to take all of his interests now and try to imagine who he’ll be.

His latest obsession? Drums.

He’s been drumming on pots and pot tops with wooden spoons and spatulas. And then Elina and Lazlo gave us a wooden drum for his birthday. And then, at the rehearsal dinner for this past weekend’s wedding, there were toys around the house for that family’s grandkids, including a plastic drum that Jonah enjoyed beating the heck out of.

And then, Jonah started crawling the entire floor plan, with me following. Upstairs, the last room we investigated had a real, life-size, grown-up size drum kit. And one stick. I sat on the stool with the boy on my lap trying to protect both of our eyes while he worked that stick against each and every drum and cymbal. He was quite methodical about it. I occasionally beat the bass drum with my foot in an approximation of 4/4. My sister joined us for a listen, and after the bass drum part she pointed out that he had been keeping time with me.

The next night, after the wedding, walking through the hotel lounge on the way out, there was a jazz trio. Jonah went crazy, trying to get out of my arms, to get at those drums.

So I might have one of those kids who’s in a band when he’s three?

Other than the fact that we would have to somehow acquire a drum kit, why not?